ABSTRACT
The democratic concept of equal educational opportunity for every child has long been given lip service, much like the phrase “All men are created equal,” wrote Professor Charles Scott Berry in 1941. For the concept to have its full expression, he argued, there must be “recognition of the social, economic, and educational signifi cance of individual differences in children and the importance of making more adequate provision for individual differences in the educational program” (p. 253). Some 70 years later the concept of equal educational opportunity for every child remains a cherished value with special education in American schools now governed by a constellation of federal, state, and local policies that refl ect the public will, and guided by the cumulative fi ndings of educational research that inform effective practice (Bateman, 2007). To ensure that this cherished value does not remain an elusive goal, those who administer special education have the primary responsibility of serving and supporting exceptional learners and their families in ways that are both educationally productive and legally correct (see https:// www.casecec.org/about, retrieved July 30, 2009).
